SHAW'S LATEST PLAY
GIVEN IN ENGLAND
One Critic's View Is Playwright
Had Eye on Films When He
Wrote 'Millionairess.'
BEXHILL-ON-SEA, England,
Nov. 17.—George Bernard Shaw's
"The Millionairess," which was
produced in Vienna in January and
some critics considered to be the
most interesting play he had written since "The Apple Cart," was
produced here tonight by the Forsyth Players, a local repertory
company, which alone thought to
apply to the author for permission
to undertake the first performance
in Britain. Allowance must be made
for the play's dependence on the
single part of a dominating young
woman who has £30,000,000 and
smashes her way to more, which
obviously was written for an actress of considerable accomplishment.
Tonight's performance showed
Eppifania Ognisanti di Parerga to
be an extraordinary, exuberant addition to the Shavian theatre. The
piece itself may be likened to an
elaborate cartoon, which is highly
entertaining in itself and is more
easily enjoyed if the spectator has
taken the precaution to glance at
the accompanying preface. Epi-
fania would seem to be at the same
time Shaw's delight and despair.
She, like Bonaparte and Lenin, is
a boss, born, booted and spurred
to ride rough-shod over the rest
of us.
Shaw rubs in the dangers of
oppression with the gusto of a
medieval fresco painter who is
painting the devil at the mouth of
hell, but those who seek a sharper
definition of remedies which Epifa-
nia's victims discuss so entertainingly on the stage may think what
they find there either extravagant
or commonplace.'
The London Daily Telegraph's
critic says of the play: "It can only
claim a minor place among its
author's works."
The Daily Mail's critic, describing how Epifania finds work in a
London sweater's den, gets control
of his business, buys a riverside inn
and makes it popular and finally arranges to divorce her pugilist husband and marry an Egyptian doctor,
says: "Shaw plainly had an eye on
the film rights when he wrote this
play."